Separate issues. Personally, I agree with the court. Every email written by a professor at a state university should not be available for the public to dig through at random under FOIA.
Actual state employees at a government agency, different story.
Stunning. Professors at STATE UNIVERSITIES are STATE EMPLOYEES using STATE FUNDED computers on STATE FUNDED networks in STATE FUNDED facilities provided for by STATE TAXPAYERS. There's no difference between a state employee working at the secretary of state's office and a STATE UNIVERSITY professor. Both are employed using STATE TAX DOLLARS. Shocking you can type the sentence above and not see that.
Oh I get it... in your world state educators are not state employees enough to be treated like any other state employee?
No accountability for tenure-protected public state educators?
Assuming you're employed by someone other than yourself, you are probably naïve enough to be of the mistakenly belief that your eMail node at work is somehow "private" simply because you say it is.
State employees are accountable to taxpayers. Everything from salaries to benefits are a matter of public record. Any and all communications made on a state computer that do not pertain to personal tax filings made by citizens (as protected under law) can and will be made a matter of public record eventually.
It's just a matter of time before Mann's eMails see the light of day. With the disclosure the Stein litigation portends, this may be sooner rather than later -- with or without a state or VA Court directive to block it. And Mann will regret it all soon enough.
Why should those emails or other correspondence be protected?